


Scent of Death

by st_ivalice



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_ivalice/pseuds/st_ivalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Queen of the Reef receives a gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scent of Death

Sometimes her gaze was unbearable. Often, it was heavy, laden with secrets and plots, and duty.

Today, her eyes crept along the back of his neck, seeing only the marks she made earlier. It took all his discipline not to scratch at it, rub at the heat that rushed to the surface of his skin. She was his Queen. He would do whatever, whenever, all she need do but speak, even if she did not use words.

Still, as Spymaster, brother, confidante, he stood watch at the foot of her throne.

"You stand as if even the air is threatening, Brother. Plotting my demise."

He must act as if she did not earlier  _seek counsel_  with him and that she now, teased that he must so vigilantly.

"For a Queen, there is  _always_  plot in the air; treachery at the heart of things," he said, not just to Her Grace, but to the room, to the guards that stood watch, Awoken and Fallen, both. The servants were neither blind nor deaf, he must make sure he was neither as well.

The Captain made herself known at the end of the catwalk, bowing. "The Emissary approaches, your grace."

He turned for the Queen's approval. She lifted but a finger and beckoned impassively. 

"Let her," he said, giving his own acquiescence.

"Your Grace," Petra said, bowing deep. "A parcel of great importance has arrived for you."

The Spymaster stalked toward the emissary, the last defence. "We shall be the judge of that."

It was a small canister, covered in markings those of Earth and its Tower adorned themselves with. He doubted its contents were worth their time at all. At worse, it was a trap meant to kill the Queen. At best it was some Guardian or Earth-born seeking audience. Not the first of either "gifts" to make its way to the Reef.

As such, the Queen remained on her throne, barely interested.

"From?"

"From a Guardian, your grace. She said you would know whom."

" _She_?" The Queen said, the lilt of her voice reaching his ears so quickly across the distance. He heard the taut leather she wore shift as she stood and descended the steps to him. "Our delightful little  _pet_  has given us a present."

Yes,  _her_. He thought they were done with her, that she lay rotting under Martian sand. If she was still alive, she must have realized that her  _noble quest_  was a fool's errand; a death sentence. She must have scurried back to her Tower to lick her wounds. The box held the Vex eye then, no doubt valuable still if they ever got past the Exclusion Zone.

He opened the box, his mood souring when he did not find the crimson orb.

"What is it, brother?" His sister was intrigued, a rare thing.

He was not quite sure. Organic material-- _petals_ , it looked like. Deep crimson, violet, and inky petals. As he picked one up, it occurred to him the botanical gift might be poison. Deceptively clever. An ancient, earthy scent rose from it.

"Flowers, my Queen," he announced. "Perhaps poison."

She hummed her opposition to his advice as usual. He hoped she would heed his advice this once. Why did she favor that Guardian so?

"Perhaps not. Let me see."

He held up the petals for her, careful his gloves were the only points of contact. Against his wishes, she touched with her bare fingers, elegantly observing them.

"Flowers," she decreed, but her face remained amused. She smiled, pleased with something he could not discern. "Perhaps it has decided to  _court_  me."

He dared to glance at her eyes, a dangerous action, even more so than the increasing difficulty to read her when it concerned this Guardian. Still, he had to consider all angles. Surely this Guardian would never be so bold as to send a gift of that nature. The absurdity, the  _audacity_. Yet, she had flown here, approached this throne with misguided noble intentions, equally as defiant to how things were never in her favor.

The Queen plunged her fingers into the box, feeling at the velvet. He winced. "What odd perception," she examined. "Blood. Royalty. Death, perhaps?" She tried at human metaphors, for within the Reef, black was tied to many things. 

"Perhaps the Traveler has limited the Guardian's mind. Darkness and Light. Black and-"

"Oh," she whispered, so silent as to be the breath that escaped her every breath. Her eyes narrowed, blue at its most intense.

His lifetime of companionship with her made him privy to all her subtle movements and she regarded the box respectfully, taking it with both hands.   


"So she has done it." _  
_

_She_? He looked at her as she returned back to her throne with the box. The thought of the flowers unexamined remained at the forefront of his mind. "Done what, my Queen?"

She glanced at him from her throne, eyes glowing in the semi-darkness. "Entered the Black Garden."

For that, he had no answer, no opposition.

Closing the box once more, she held it out for him to take. "Whatever shall I do with a gift like  _this_? Perhaps I shall make an attar."

As he relieved her of it, the Spymaster disagreed. He was suddenly chilled by the contents, the myths and stories of the unreachable place filling his mind. He had gone along with his sister's game because he believed no one would ever reach it. Now the stench of the petals wormed at his gut, and he wanted nothing more than to destroy the box and hunt this Guardian down for her poisonous gift.

 


End file.
